Students demonstrate using tech in the classroom during 2nd Town Hall

Monday

Dec 1, 2014 at 5:13 PM

At the recent second Technology Town Hall meeting, Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers and Assistant Superintendent Chris Marczak were eager to come back with a new and improved meeting in hopes of answering questions that were asked at the first event in September.

by Sara Wise/The Oak Ridger

At the recent second Technology Town Hall meeting, Oak Ridge Schools Superintendent Bruce Borchers and Assistant Superintendent Chris Marczak were eager to come back with a new and improved meeting in hopes of answering questions that were asked at the first event in September.

Tuesday night’s Town Hall at Oak Ridge High School was all show, and less tell: a stark difference from the previous meeting. Twelve students were on stage with tablets to demonstrate what happens in classes now that Oak Ridge Schools has instituted a “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)” program, which allows students to use tablets and other mobile devices in their classrooms. Jefferson Middle School teacher Chris Layton led the demonstration.

Layton started off by introducing Kahoot, a website he uses in class to create and administer quizzes. He invited people in the audience to go to the website and jo­in in on the test.

About 30 people took the test together and, on stage, competition was getting heated as students fought for the top spot on the Kahoot leaderboard.

Layton spoke highly of the platform. Kahoot exports a spreadsheet showing all the participants and their answers to the questions. He said that helps him understand what he might need to go back and cover or what areas students are struggling with. In his class, he said, the students often get competitive about their Kahoots, and he posts leaderboards from all of his classes on a wall.

Next, Layton demonstrated Socrative, another quizzing platform that he uses in class. Like the Kahoot quiz, audience members were able to take part in the program and test their own Egyptian knowledge. Layton showed that the program gives him real-time results, which allow him to visit students as they are taking the test if he sees they are having a hard time.

“I can go to that student who maybe has missed the first three questions and kind of figure out where’s the disconnect,” Layton said.

He lauded the improvements from traditional test taking.

“One thing I really enjoy is that it tells you if you get an answer right automatically and there’s also a box for teachers to type in an explanation,” he said. “I remember when I was in school and would take a test, I would convince myself that I did really well on that test and two or three days later I would find out that I did not do well.”

He said the instant feedback allows him to do a better job as a teacher and helps the student understand what they’re having trouble with.

“Socrative and Kahoot are a great way for students to review,” he said, stressing the opportunity it gives families to work together, as both programs can be accessed at home.

Layton, who teaches social studies, stressed that the technology advances in the district are not just for students who are interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). He said he didn’t like that acronym, and preferred to read it as, “Students, Teachers Energizing Minds.” Still, he stressed that “it’s not all devices, all the time.”

That said, many of his students do love using the technology, he said. Especially when they get to play Minecraft.

Minecraft is a popular building simulation video game that Layton said he allows his students to play as a learning opportunity. He showed a video made by his students for a class project. The video takes viewers through a recreation of a historic place, including irrigation, pyramids and other historically accurate places and things.

“The greatest part about what they do in Minecraft is they are so driven to make it historically accurate that they’ll dig further into what I’ve taught,” Layton said. He even said that a program exists in order to align teaching standards to the game, as well as a website: minecraft.edu.

“(The technology) allows me to get more in-depth with them, but what I’ve found is they actually show me ways to get more in-depth with my teaching,” the teacher said. “I’ve kind of updated my teaching style.”

For example, he said, the students were actually the ones who taught him the helpfulness of Minecraft as an education tool.

For those students who don’t like the video game, “because some just aren’t interested in Minecraft,” Layton has other interactive events that are more “traditional.” He lauded a paper slide project where students make a sort of low-tech Powerpoint presentation by creating “slides” on paper and filming them with a camera, then editing the slides together.

At the end of the Town Hall meeting, Marczak and Borchers said they were very happy with the event.

“I think tonight was what we wanted it to be,” Borchers said. “We were able to show people that attended how this can be different than the classrooms we learnedº in and how the tools actually make the job easier for teachers and more engaging for the students, so it’s really a win-win.”

Marczak agreed that the event was a success and stressed that Tuesday’s meeting wouldn’t be the last.

“We’ll continue to have more town halls because when the community knows what we’re doing, they have more confidence in us and that’s what we want,” Marczak said.

The next step is bringing the community into the classroom. Oak Ridge Schools is hosting a community tour, with 30 spaces open to the public. The tour will take attendees through several schools in the district to show how students are actually using devices in the classroom. The tour is scheduled for Dec. 16. Parents can sign up on the schools website, ortn.edu.

Sara Wise can be contacted at (865) 220-5501.

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